– the ramblings of a fettered mind

Menu

enlightenment

Humans lie. We do it all the time. Doing one thing when instinct tells you to do another is the same as lying. This is what differentiates us from simpler life forms, which mostly decide their actions with instinct alone—driven by the underlying requirement for the survival of the species. They kill to eat, to live and to procreate. They procreate when ever and where ever they can. In contrast (most) humans do not have sex with any willing and attractive person they see, even though there is a strong desire in us to do so. This too is a lie—a denial of the truth.

Humans use other factors to decide on their actions. Some humans choose to kill other humans, even though they must know it is wrong. Do not be too hasty to deride this ability to ignore a call to action from our instinct, as it is the same ability we use to act in an altruistic manner. Sometimes we act against our species’ better judgement, sacrificing the many for the few…or even the one (and sometimes an insignificant one)—with potential alone to achieve for our species.

So the same behavioural traits and thought processes that raise us above less sentient creatures, the ones that make us in to “Gandhi”s or “Mother Teresa”s, are the same ones that can drag us down an make us in to “Hitler”s and “Pol Pot”s.

It seems, at this stage in our evolution or enlightenment, we cannot have one without the other.

Currently reading…

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson
1Q84 by Murakami
the boat by nam le
Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson
Wanting by Richard Flanagan
The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil